Estimating walking access levels incorporating distance thresholds of built environment features

ABSTRACT Physical inactivity has become a major public health challenge in recent decades, and active travel can contribute to more sustainable and healthy travel habits. Walking as a mode of transportation can provide health benefits, and the impact of the built environment on physical activity has been highlighted in numerous studies. This paper introduces a new approach to the quantification of walkability incorporating distance thresholds. The paper presents the research context for the Walking Access Index (WAI), a description of the methodology developed, and an application of the proposed index in the Melbourne metropolitan area, Australia. An integrated approach combining transport and land-use planning concepts was employed to construct the WAI. Using the Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel and Activity (VISTA) dataset, separate negative binomial regression (NBR) models have been applied to examine how the new index performs compared to an existing approach. Key findings indicate that a greater number of residents are likely to have walking trip stages when living in a more walkable environment. Furthermore, it was found using statistical modeling that the WAI produces better results than one of the common approaches.